The back of the box features an all new painting by Mike Thompson, as well as a bio for Platinum and Tin. I really like this painting, as it does a great job of showing off the characters’ different personalities in a very concise way, with simple poses.

SCULPT – Platinum features a lot of new parts, in addition to some of the reused standard DCUC female parts. The torso and upper legs are reused, but the torso has a cool tunic-like piece on the front that’s almost like a dress, with some rivets all along the edges. It’s character accurate, and helps hide the standard female body. She also has a new skirt that looks great, and her lower arms and lower legs are new as well. They’re basic gloves and boots, but with rivets along the edges.

Her head sculpt is amazing. It’s truly beautiful, and I think it might be my favorite female head sculpt in the entire line so far (beating out the previous winner Poison Ivy). The face is just very gorgeous, and the expression is excellent. The hair is sculpted perfectly. It’s sculpted in layers, giving a lot of depth and realism to the sculpt. She has a cool, little, almost pillbox-shaped hat on the top of her head, complete with, you guessed it, rivets along the edge. I think this figure represents a perfect marriage of new and used parts.

PAINT – Platinum is 99.9% one solid color: silver. This is done to make her look like platinum, and to be accurate to the comics. There’s no air brushing or variation to the paint job. There doesn’t really need to be though, since she is supposed to be a shiny silver-colored android. The paint job is incredibly clean and smooth, and looks so good I can imagine many customizers using this figure to make Marvel’s Jocasta in the future.

The only thing keeping her from being 100% silver is the small detailing on her head. Her had has the symbol for Platinum painted onto it, and her eyes and eyebrows are painted on as well. And this is where it gets sad. The only bit of any real paint detail on the figure, and it’s messed up. Her eyes are seriously off center. Not by a little bit, but by a lot. Look at the close-up to the right, and you’ll see.

You can see where here eyes are sculpted, and how the eye tampos, particularly the right one, are not even close to being centered. Thankfully from afar it doesn’t look really bad, and both eyes are at least aligned right to each other, so it keeps you from noticing it until you look up close. But once you do, you can’t unsee it. Too bad, such a glaring mistake on an otherwise flawless paint execution.

ARTICULATION – Platinum has a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, bicep swivels, single elbows, wrist cuts, ab crunch, waist swivel, t-hinge hips, thigh swivels, single knees, and ankle hinges.

Most of her articulation works just fine, though a bit of it is hindered. You’d think her tunic would hinder her torso articulation, but it doesn’t. The tunic is a soft plastic glued to the top of the torso, and still allows her ab crunch to work as well as it would even without it. It also doesn’t hinder the waist swivel whatsoever, which is awesome.

Now, her skirt does hinder her leg articulation. Even though she has the standard Mattel t-hinge hips and should be able to spread her legs apart and have a large range of motion, that skirt just keeps them from moving very much at all. The skirt is a soft plastic, but because it’s so form fitting, that’s why it’s a hindrance.

I don’t know why Mattel wouldn’t include a slit up the sides to keep the articulation working just fine, but perhaps they didn’t want to “ruin” the sculpt. It would be incredibly easy to do on your own with an X-Acto knife, but for this type of figure, and with the prices we pay, we certainly shouldn’t have to do that. The figure looks beautiful regardless, I just wish she could move into some dynamic fighting poses, which require her to be able to move her legs really well.

ACCESSORIES – Tin is technically marketed as an accessory to Platinum, so he gets talked about here. Because of Tin’s small stature, he was created as a pack-in to help fans complete their Metal Men. As you can see in the photos, he’s very small. He doesn’t even reach Platinum’s waist in height.

I know Tin is supposed to be small, but I don’t think he should be that small. At any rate, his sculpt itself is fantastic. He looks like he jumped right out of the comics. His face is incredibly expressive, and I love that he even has his long nose. His entire pose is very character accurate, and he too has the rivets on his tunic, gloves, boots, and hat. He’s not very posable though. He has a ball jointed neck, and cuts at the shoulders, and that’s it.

I get that they cut down on his articulation to bring him to cost, and because he’s an accessory. However, I do wish that at least he could stand up better on his own. His stance makes him topple over every once and a while, and you really have to bend his feet forward to get him to stay. I’m sure that this was the only way we’d ever be able to get Tin, and really I’m fine with it. I do think that adding Tin instead of some constructs for Platinum was a great idea, and I’d rather have a complete team than not have Tin at all, but his shortcomings are certainly worth noting.

FUN – Neither Platinum nor Tin are very posable, and you know for me posing an action figure is most of the fun. However, it’s incredibly fun posing them with the other Metal Men, because they fit in so well. Yeah, you’re not going to get either of them into fighting poses, but just to have them all standing together is pretty amazing. If you don’t have any of the other Metal Men, then you’re going to be stuck with a rather boring, albeit beauitful, action figure and her puny sidekick. By themselves, they’re not very fun.

QUALITY CONTROL/THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR – Just Platinum’s horrendous eye tampos.

OVERALL – I wish I could like Platinum and Tin more than I already do, but I don’t think I can. Don’t get me wrong, both of their sculpts are great. Platinum’s head sculpt alone is beautiful, and you can tell a lot of love went into making both of them. But then you have Platinum’s misaligned eyes, her severely hindered articulation, and Tin being much smaller than he should be, and you can’t overlook those.

Alright, I can actually overlook Tin being too small. After all, he can make himself smaller. There, rationalized. But the problems with Platinum can’t be overlooked. I was hoping she’d be more posable, because just because she’s a female doesn’t mean she can’t kick butt with the boys. With that being said, kudos are due to Mattel for at least making them and helping to complete the Metal Men. It’s definitely awesome to have them all together, but if you don’t already have the other members of the team, you may find this duo unnecessary to your collection.

FINAL SCORE: 3 / 5

Where to buy: Platinum and Tin were originally sold on Mattycollector.com, and are now sold out there. However, you can still pick them up at the following online retailers:

• BigBadToyStore has this set in stock.
• Amazon does as well, with Free Super Saver Shipping.